Merlin Betts
This article is part of a series. Find the previous article here, and overview here.
I didn’t go to the full council meeting that approved the preliminary budget, but I did watch the video. It kicks off with a classic Paul Barnett speech, sounding like a Hastings Independent Group manifesto the very day before they came out as independents. There was hope, for a moment, that it would be a positive, maybe even entertaining hour and a half.
After that it descends into a kind of chaos. To my ears the same two questions were repeatedly asked, with a similar but slightly more illuminating answer each time, then people forgot where they were and what they were doing, so they had to have a break. It centred around Cllr Andy Patmore and Cllr Julia Hilton, the opposition leaders, and the Chief Financial Officer Kit Wheeler. Other leadership figures, like Jane Hartnell and Cllrs Batsford and Roarke would occasionally step in to clarify a point or ask that the meeting move on. Reminds me of working at HIP.
Patmore spoke for the Conservatives, emphasising a recent report that says HBC has, historically, only managed to make 80% of the savings it has sought. Kit ultimately replied, ‘Mate, we’ve got 125% of the required savings plotted into this scheme. If we drop by 20% that’s still 105% savings made.’
Head of the Greens Julia Hilton took a different tack, expressing concern over the lack of detail in the pre-budget, and the potential inadequacy of the way the council monitors progress on these things. There wasn’t much of a reply to this – Kit essentially had to say ‘We’re working on it, there’ll be more information coming as we go.’ Which is similar to “I don’t know” but not quite the same. The council is trying to improve its internal functions, even as it’s having to cut them, and this was not the place to run a detailed examination of those improvement/alteration projects. But Julia’s right, we need to keep an eye.
In his opening speech Paul seemed to have imagined some kind of alternate reality where various cllrs would debate the specific details of proposed savings and maybe even suggest some savings of their own. He didn’t get that. Ultimately both the Greens and the Tories put their hands up and said, ‘Well done for the pre-budget, but we won’t talk about it until it’s a proper budget. See you in February.’ Which, for a couple of groups effectively accusing the council leadership of laziness and disorder, seemed pretty lazy and arguably didn’t help the council overall to provide a strong face/strong response to the crisis.
I’m a bit moody about the Greens. Perhaps unfairly. But they’d been in coalition with Paul Barnett’s Labour leadership until the national party said Paul wasn’t allowed to that. They’d said decision-making at HBC should be shared among the different parties, that our local governance should be more collective and consensual. The Hastings Independents come out, I think in response to all that, and the Greens are suddenly saying no, bad timing, showing poor leadership. Et tu Hilton? I dunno, seeing Labour and Tory bile in the Observer the other week, hoping it’d be slightly balanced out by the Greens, I was a bit shocked that it wasn’t. Whatever. I don’t know the ins-and-outs of their inter-party squabbles.
I have missed out, however, that Cllr Hilton also successfully proposed five amendments to the Corporate plan, not strictly related to the budget, at the full council meeting. The corporate plan is just their overall strategy at HBC. Her amendments focussed on taking more serious steps to remedy the climate crisis, and making commitments to reduce inequality in town, particularly with regards to being age friendly. They were good, they were accepted.
I remind myself, as I remind you reader, that councillors are part-timers who have real jobs and lives as well. Everything they achieve – particularly what the leaders achieve while wrangling with a financial nightmare – is good hard work. Much as I can and will occasionally condemn them and laugh at what they’re doing (particularly the pointless politicking we see in the two big parties) they’re all good people, all doing their best. We can help by supporting them, not heckling them.
Bearing that in mind, I’ll mention some positive projects that could help us resolve this big issue of the housing crisis.
Get some answers in part four: Sound the clarion, call the volunteers.